Michael Madsen

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Birthday:

25 September 1958, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Birth Name:

Michael Soren Madsen

Height:

188 cm

Michael Madsen's long career spans 25 years and more than 170 films in which he has played memorable characters in myriad box office hits, including: Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) Sin City (2005), Hell Ride (2008), Die Another Day (2002), Donnie Brasco (1997), Species (1995), The Getaway (1994), Thelma & Louise (1991), and Free Willy (1993). Michael is notably recognized for his role as Mr. Blonde, in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992).Michael was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Elaine Madsen (née Melson), an Emmy-winning writer, producer, and poet, and Calvin Madsen, a firefighter. He is the brother of actress Virginia Madsen. His paternal grandparents were Danish.In recent years, Madsen has received Best Actor awards for his role in the Irish boxing film Strength and Honour, from the New York International Film Festival, the Boston Film Festival and the Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival. Madsen received the Golden Dolphin Award at the 25th Festroia Festival in Portugal, an award also given to veterans Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum. In 2012, Madsen was named President of the first annual Champs Elysees Film Festival in France which honored producer Harvey Weinstein. Recent television appearances include guest starring roles on The Mob Doctor (2012), Golden Boy (2013)and Blue Bloods (2010).Madsen is well recognized as an accomplished poet. His first book "Burning In Paradise" with a Foreword by Dennis Hopper, won the Independent Firecracker Award and was later translated into Norwegian. He has a world-wide following with his work, honored at International Poetry Festivals in Genoa, Italy and Mexico . He was recently the Guest of Honor at the Crossing Border Festival in Netherlands. His "The Complete Poetic Works" is an international bestseller. This was followed by his "Signs of Life" dedicated to Chris Penn. This unique work combined his new poetry with his own original photography. His next book of poetry "American Badass"was dedicated to the memory of the late David Carradine, his friend and Kill Bill co-star. His newest book "Expecting Rain" has a Foreword by Jerry Hopkins. Show less «

Well, one thing for sure, I won't be remembered for Free Willy (1993). Or maybe I will.

[in Men's Health, March 2004] Kids are a great excuse for you to stop acting like one.

Encourage your kids' artistic side. Toughen up everything else.

Your children don't have to fear you to respect you.

Is it really selling out if it feeds your family?

I encourage my boys to do stuff in the arts, but I'm also an advocate of not taking any shit . . . I have a heavy bag and every morning the ...Show more »

I encourage my boys to do stuff in the arts, but I'm also an advocate of not taking any shit . . . I have a heavy bag and every morning the boys go three three-minute rounds on the heavy bag with the gloves. Show less «

The oddest thing is when children recognize me from Free Willy (1993) and their parents recognize me from Reservoir Dogs (1992). The kids ar...Show more »

The oddest thing is when children recognize me from Free Willy (1993) and their parents recognize me from Reservoir Dogs (1992). The kids are, like, "There's Glen!" and the parents are, like, "Don't go near that guy!" Show less «

I'm a leading man trapped inside a bad guy's body.

You get these horrifying straight-to-video things for very little money, then you go to the Cannes Film Festival and they got some poster of...Show more »

You get these horrifying straight-to-video things for very little money, then you go to the Cannes Film Festival and they got some poster of you, 40 feet high, in the worst movie in the world. You're like, "Oh my God. Take the fucking thing down!" Show less «

[2004] Maybe I was just born in the wrong era, man. I'm a bit of a throwback to the days of black-and-white movies. Those guys back then, th...Show more »

[2004] Maybe I was just born in the wrong era, man. I'm a bit of a throwback to the days of black-and-white movies. Those guys back then, they had a certain kind of directness about them. A lot of the screenplays, the plots were very simplistic - they gave rise to a type of anti-hero that maybe I suit better. Show less «

L.A. Confidential (1997) was written with me in mind, but Russell Crowe got the part. Go figure.

[on Donnie Brasco (1997)] Great film, sure, but not a payday. [Al Pacino] and [Johnny Depp] got all the money. There was none left for me.

I've been in a few brawls in my time.

I probably made a few pictures I shouldn't have done, but I have four sons and I have to pay the rent. If you have a decision to make about ...Show more »

I probably made a few pictures I shouldn't have done, but I have four sons and I have to pay the rent. If you have a decision to make about whether or not you can buy groceries at the market or whether or not you're going to make a bad movie, you're going to make a bad movie. Show less «

My career has been very strange. My career is like a heart monitor. I get involved in a good project now and then to keep things going. And ...Show more »

My career has been very strange. My career is like a heart monitor. I get involved in a good project now and then to keep things going. And then I make things that I work on that I hope are going to be good so I can make a living and keep a roof over the heads of those little monsters I have in my house. You know, every movie you make can't be great, no matter who you are. Even [Marlon Brando] made some clinkers. Show less «

I grew up in a time when I watched actors like Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum . . . those are the movies that I liked and I responded to...Show more »

I grew up in a time when I watched actors like Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum . . . those are the movies that I liked and I responded to. They're all gone now and there's no talent like that anymore, there's no immensity of talent that exists like that in the motion picture industry. Even the movies are turning into a bunch of junk. They think if they put a handsome face in there or a good-looking body and they surround it with enough cars blowing up, that it is going to be entertaining . . . but in the long run it's just not going to last. It's all empty, there's no story anymore . . . the same thing is happening to the motion picture industry that is happening to the landscape. Show less «

[on his role in Strength and Honour (2007)] It's a movie about fighters, not fighting. You know, I got over seeing myself on screen a long t...Show more »

[on his role in Strength and Honour (2007)] It's a movie about fighters, not fighting. You know, I got over seeing myself on screen a long time ago, but watching this film really affects me. Show less «

I say my [tough guy] acting days are over. But then [Humphrey Bogart] made 30 pictures playing a [tough guy], and it wasn't until The Maltes...Show more »

I say my [tough guy] acting days are over. But then [Humphrey Bogart] made 30 pictures playing a [tough guy], and it wasn't until The Maltese Falcon (1941) that he was thought of as a leading man. Show less «

I like to diversify. And I am all about longevity. I want to be doing this for as long as I can. I have made, I think, 72 pictures now. And ...Show more »

I like to diversify. And I am all about longevity. I want to be doing this for as long as I can. I have made, I think, 72 pictures now. And I have made a lot of studio stuff and I have made a lot of low-budget stuff. The fun of making independent films is that they are a lot more open and it is a lot easier to ad-lib and create a character and collaborate with the director. With a studio picture, you are a lot more controlled and your whole environment and your whole presentation is a lot more monitored. Show less «

[2002] I liked The Getaway (1994). I think "The Getaway" is pretty good. It was exciting. I don't think that it's comparable to the original...Show more »

[2002] I liked The Getaway (1994). I think "The Getaway" is pretty good. It was exciting. I don't think that it's comparable to the original [The Getaway (1972)] by any stretch of the imagination, but I still think it stands on its own. I think it was a little bit more exciting than given credit for. Show less «

[2002] The thing with Wyatt Earp (1994)] was, I think every guy in that picture did it because they wanted to walk down the streets of the O...Show more »

[2002] The thing with Wyatt Earp (1994)] was, I think every guy in that picture did it because they wanted to walk down the streets of the OK Corral. That's part of history. That's a historical event that actually happened. I remember standing on top of the street with Dennis Quaid on the morning that we started to shoot this sequence and he said, "Let's face it, what we're about to do is the reason that we're all here." And he was right and we all knew he was. It was kind of ironic, if any of us had known how far it was down to the OK Corral, then we would have taken the horses . . . I might have even grabbed a cab. Having seen the movie, it was a long boring exercise in nothingness, so . . . But I still have to say that doing something that was historically accurate and had to do with history was very appealing to me. Show less «

(On the films he's proud of) Kill Bill, Species (1995), Free Willy (1993), Thelma & Louise (1991), Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Donnie Bras...Show more »

(On the films he's proud of) Kill Bill, Species (1995), Free Willy (1993), Thelma & Louise (1991), Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Six, that's it. That's not a low number. I'm just hard to please. I've made some crap but you've got to pay the bills. Show less «